Baseball
When 10 days remain until the beginning of the 55th National Baseball Series, people in Havana are getting excited, as they enjoy the coronation of their team in the competition U-23 category, with a final stage in Sancti Spiritus.

Havana's team defeated the hosts Sancti Spiritus 7-2, after losing in the 1st 3 games of the final at home and later beat them 2 times.

The success was for Brandon Delgado, who finished with 3 wins and 2 losses, while Javier Vazquez (2-2) took the loss.

The capital representatives came last night at the José Antonio Huelga Stadium willing to give the blow of death to open the board in the very same 1st inning when scoring 2 runs and added 2 more in the 5th and 3 in 6th, while Sancti Spiritus did 1 on the 5th and another one in the 6th.

Precisely this day the first teams that will be in the 55th National Baseball Series i.e., Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, Sancti Spiritus, Villa Clara, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo were officially released.

The staffs of Havana, Matanzas, Mayabeque, Camaguey, Ciego de Avila, Granma and Holguin provinces are expected to be announced today, according to the program released by the Cuban Baseball Federation.

The closure will be this Thursday with the top of Isle of Youth, Cienfuegos and Las Tunas.

Volleyball

There wasn't any stage fright for Cuba at Tuesday's opener in resistance. The Caribbean side comfortably handled the match against Egypt and acquired a 3-0 (25-19, 25-20, 25-13) win that completely opened the way to the Round of 16.

After a couple of games as a reserve player, Cuba's José Carlos Romero jumped onto the court as a starter and capped 17 points --not only he was the main scorer, but also the only player to reach double digits in the entire game.

As for Egypt, the pressure might have been a little too much, because a 3-nil was the only result good enough for them to qualify. When Cuba clinched the first set, the African side fell into errors and helped to the Cuban cause.

Cuba rose up to the 3rd place in Pool A, thanks to a slightly better point ratio than Mexico, which qualified as 4th. Egypt, not only winless but also without any points, will play for the 17th place as their best possible final ranking.

Soccer

The last draw for the CONCACAF Pre-Olympic Soccer Tournament determined that the current champion, Mexico, was placed in Pool B.

The Mexican team will meet Honduras, Haiti and the winner between Guatemala and Costa Rica, for 1 of the tickets for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016.

At the tournament, scheduled for October 2nd-13th in several cities in the United States, the Pool A will be composed of the host country, Panama, Canada and Cuba to compete against each other.

The first 2 of each key will be qualified for the semifinals, which will be played on October 10th at the Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah, seeking to get the pass to the finals and direct tickets to the Olympic Games.

Meanwhile, the winner of the match for the 3rd place should win in a playoff with Colombia for its move to Rio de Janeiro-2016.

Athletics
Britain's Sebastian Coe was elected today as President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) at the congress of the organization held in Beijing, in which also double Olympic champion, Cuban Alberto Juantorena, was elected as its Vice-President.

Coe, double Olympic champion at 1500 meters, received 115 of the 207 votes of the representatives of the federations associated with the IAAF, while his rival in the election, and close friend, Ukrainian Sergey Bubka, former champ as well, had 92 votes.

Juantorena was given 1 of the 4 positions of vice-president of the governing body of athletics to be the 4th most voted candidate among 7 candidates.